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" 4:44 was putting all of the marbles on the table on every front - between the home front, the fan front, all of it. *Jay-Z: We were at the Roc Nation offices here in L.A., and he played me what he was working on, and I was like, "That's amazing."
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No I.D.: I told him, "I got something," and played him tons of beats that kind of had the technique, and some of the stuff we ended up using was in that batch. I really was just trying find something sonically to do that would be different, but familiar. It kind of led to us running back and forth into each other. I think at the time I didn't have a sonic direction he didn't have a sonic direction. When he first came to me - two, two and a half years ago - he told me he wanted to do something that was a little more revealing. (producer): We had discussed this type of project for a couple years. It's a hard thing to do because you're so removed from where you were at the beginning. The touchpoint that moves, that starts a conversation, and be really f***ing good. Just like from the beginning of someone's career, and that sort of album that really means something that touches the culture. I studied Prince, I studied Mike, Bono had "Beautiful Day" he was like 40, I think. *Jay-Z (artist/co-producer): Before I started this album I studied - not just hip-hop - any genre.
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No I.D., Jimmy Douglass, Chaka Pilgrim and other key participants revisit the making of the album and how the magnum opus came together. He admitted past sins, acknowledged failures (for perhaps the first time in two decades) and the result was his most personal project to date - yielding eight 60th GRAMMY nominations, including Album Of The Year. Jay-Z proved that grown rap music can exist and punctuated it by being an open book and stripping away his mystique. 4:44 travels beyond the ageism crossroads rappers have often reached and lost their way. On another hand, it's a coming of age project for not just Jay-Z, but hip-hop in general. pieced the LP together (with famed engineer Young Guru) until perfection was achieved. On one hand, it's the quintessential one artist/one producer masterpiece, as Jay and super producer No I.D. Just how intimate was Jay-Z planning to be?Ĥ:44 is much more than the sum of its parts. Meanwhile, Jay-Z's favorite number is 4.) (The address of Le Bain, the hotel's rooftop bar, is 444 West 13th Street. Once the New York City buses with 4:44 emblazoned on the sides started rolling around in late spring 2017, speculation ran rampant about the title being informed by the incident - a hotel elevator camera capturing Solange attacking him as Beyoncé looked on. Uncomfortable truths unearthed, demons shouted down, process refined – even when everything melts away, you can still be ice-cold.Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake Win Best Rap/Sung Collaborationįollowing 2014's "Elevator Gate" and Beyoncé's candid GRAMMY-winning project Lemonade, rumors swirled that Hova would release his own album in response. As albums of late-career reckoning go, 4:44 isn’t quite Gaye or Sinatra or Cash, but it’s on the path.
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Rather, he makes a strong case for artistically ageing by drilling down to core principles. And while the Jay-Z of ten years ago would have been improvising his way through Young Thug and Playboi Carti anti-flows both as an exercise in hubris and also competitive vim, there’s none of that here. He’s a veteran, and it shows: On three songs, he’s baffled about how the younger generation uses Instagram as a tool of exaggerated street theatre. When snappy, though, they’re exhilarating, like the opening of “Caught Their Eyes”, which has the snarl Jay-Z arrived with fully formed on his 1996 debut album, Reasonable Doubt: “I survived reading guys like you/ I’m surprised y’all think y’all can disguise y’all truths.”Īt this stage of his career, though, keeping up with the Migos would be a fool’s task. He’s evolved from dazzling taunts to ruminations that are sometimes snappy and sometimes lumpy. The qualities that made Jay-Z one of rap’s true savants were his sly wit and the way he threaded himself into the production – few rappers have found more creative ways to disperse their syllables, and sounded tougher and less fatigued while doing it. When he laments not investing in the now-redeveloped Brooklyn neighbourhood Dumbo on “The Story of OJ”, it’s not clever, just a gripe.
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That underneath it all is a man full of regret is both obvious and, at times, a bit deflating. Part of the thrill of listening to him has been how lustrously he paints the unattainable. Ornamentation has long served Jay-Z well, so the lack of glamour here is striking.